


Restart

by Tieleen



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Early Work, Early in Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 11:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3379622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/pseuds/Tieleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's worried all the time now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restart

Dean's worried all the time now.

He doesn't know how his dad ever did it. Except, of course, his dad can do anything, except, of course, he knows how, because he was there, he helped. But it wasn't like this from child-height. Sometimes it was a great adventure and sometimes it was annoying but mostly it was just life, just the way things were; he had nothing to compare it with.

But he knows how it can be, now, how it's supposed to be, slipping out of motel rooms at the dead of night when something goes wrong and not worrying about discovering thirty miles later that he forgot behind a favorite toy. He knows what it's like to close doors behind him and not feel guilty, to never spare a thought for whether fucking _social services_ are coming after him. (That, at least, is a little familiar, yes, but Dean's dad was never _legally dead_.)

He's worried all the time, and that's the most unfamiliar thing of all.

Dean's dad started hunting when Sammy was two and a half. In the beginning, he'd only do it when he could leave Dean and Sammy with people who could protect them; there was a lot of time in the beginning he spent on just finding things out, researching, learning, finding out about this new world he had made himself a part of. By the time Dean could be left alone with Sammy (by the time he, among other things, could shoot straight nine point nine times out of ten,) they were already experts at their respective parts.

Dean didn't have the luxury, in the beginning, of feeling useful like that. He'd grown up in this business, after all, he had no need for re-education. He'd spent some of that time, in the very beginning, trying to track dad down; but that was just hunting under pretenses, and Charlie was just a year and a bit, and it was too early for her. Too early for him, too.

He'd settled down and played house for a full year. He got a part time job and a nursery he checked out obsessively every few days for any signs of things being off. He'd wake up in a real apartment that belonged to him and not some girl, where no one but him had ever used the towels before, and he'd fry bacon and mash vegetables and fruit in his own tiny kitchen, and let Charlie call him Daddy even when it made something in his throat feel like fire.

Then he started hunting again. Because it was the only right thing to do, even if it was so dead wrong.

Charlie's safest with him, and this will always be a fact. Her grandparents are older people, and completely clueless, and they only had one daughter, so there's no other family to check out. But he doesn't kid himself. Charlie's safer with him than she would be with them, but she'd be safer with him if he just knew about what was out there, was just primed and prepared, without doing anything about it. He leaves her behind a lot, always with people who know what's what, but sometimes she's still in the danger zone.

He knows, too, that more than one person had burned up in this kid's bloodline, and it's entirely possible she's the furthest thing from _safe_ , whatever he does.

So he goes back to hunting for her, really, and for himself, because he doesn't think he could take losing her as well. But he also does it because it's what he's always been meant to be doing, because he can't not do it, not when there are so many people out there who stand to lose as much as he ever did. He does it even though it's a complete and total betrayal of Sammy and everything he ever ran away from. And he tells himself he'll keep her safe, as safe as his dad had ever made him (more, safer, safest), that she'll always know everything she needs to, that he'll always come back. Once he had carried her out of a burning building, just like he had carried her dad years before; her life is his responsibility and his debt, and he'll always do all he can for her, everything within the limits of the cards he was dealt.

He just never expected to be so scared, to be worried all the fucking time. He doesn't remember his dad ever looking this scared.

Charlie's eating a banana sandwich. He barely remembers her mom from their one meeting, from the pictures that survived that he keeps for her at the bottom of a drawer, but he tries to trace signs and tracks in her toddler-round face. He can tell she'll be a looker, there's no doubt of that, but hey, she's a Winchester, like there ever was a question there.

He tells her about werewolves while he washes the dishes, warning signs and patterns and packs, mythology and good calibers for silver bullets, and she looks at him with Sammy's eyes, serious and listening, trusting him to always tell her what she needs to know.


End file.
